Scott Bush

It was The Ruins alright… specifically, it ruined my dinner, which I almost lost while watching this one. Not scary, but gory and gross (remember Kathy Bates bashing James Caan’s legs in Misery? The Ruins has a scene that puts that to shame).

In the “pro” column is an excellent concept: a Mayan temple covered in a diabolical man-eating vine. It’s sequestered by the locals, avoided by birds, and apparently only a cab ride away from a party resort. Another pro: actor Jonathan Tucker (Jeff in the movie) looks a hell of a lot like Christian Bale. Made me think I was watching Batman on vacation in Mexico.

In the “con” column is just about everything else. It’s ending suffers from the typical “let’s keep the horror going!” syndrome (The Ring is the only movie that did that well). A few scenes feel like they’re shoe-horned in from the book, such as Stacy’s accusation of infidelity between Amy and Eric. If I read the book (which I won’t, but Matthew Baldwin did and provides a review over at DefectiveYeti) I’m sure it would seem less forced. The first major “attack” of the vines in the temple was unbelievably cheesey (think Muppet-show quality), but later interactions with it were much better and the under-the-skin stuff actually looked good, too.

In retrospect I may be too hard on it. It grossed me out, couldn’t watch during a few scenes, and was tense while anticipating something bad about to happen. That pretty much sums up this sort of movie.

Oh, and kudos to my friend Tara. At the opening scene, she correctly identified the only character to survive until the end. Her guess? The only actress she recognized, Jena Malone (she was in one of my favorites, Donnie Darko, and voiced a character in Miyazaki’s Howl’s Moving Castle). It’s a pretty safe bet in a horror movie.

“Of course they don’t!” I hear (sane, normal) people thunder when they read this post’s title. “I agree!” I scream back. That’s how passionate I am about dog clothing. We’ve all seen the dreaded dog sweater, which is horrible (note how most of the dogs are chihuahuas or other miniscule purse-living dogs). Yet, in some sick way I can almost understand how it can be cute or funny or just a way to sell a university logo to alumni with too much disposable income.

But not dog shoes. No. The line must be drawn here.

“Surely you jest!” shout the masses of normal people. “I do not!” Is my reply. Gasps of shock all around as I present… “bark ‘n boots”

I ran into these abominations at a tent sale at a sporting goods store, which I can only hope means they were shunned long enough to be marked down thrice and shuffled off to the parking lot to be sold with the cheap LED camping lanterns no one wanted.

The crux of the issue is this: dogs were wild animals who walked, ran, trotted, and jumped all over the place for thousands of years without the need for gortex and nylon around their paws. I can only imagine the poor dog’s discomfort and annoyance after their misguided master tugged them on. (I wonder if they come with one of those cone-shaped collars vets make dogs wear so they won’t chew on their surgical wounds?) Why in the world would a dog want to wear boots?

Luckily, the geniuses at grip trex anticipated that question and were kind enough to answer it, I’m sure after many doggie focus groups or perhaps canine mind-reading sessions. Here’s a photo, but sadly my camera phone doesn’t capture legible text at that size. Let me summarize: a bunch of marketing speak that points out why these brand of dog shoes are better than others (there are other manufacturers?!). I don’t believe “Seamless construction reduces abrasion and improves fit” is a reason why a (sane) dog would want to wear boots. Sure, these might be the equivalent of Birkenstoks, Crocs, or whatever is considered the most comfortable shoes these days… but guess what? DOGS DON’T WEAR SHOES. It’s like a human buying a feather comb. Best feather comb on the market: all-metal construction, gold-tipped ends, etc. but still pointless… to a human.

I could rant for a while longer about pointless products serving a need that doesn’t exist (this, this, or just about anything else sold in a Skymall catalog) but I know it’s futile. People will still buy crap they think they need.

UPDATE: My friend and dog owner, Eric, has commented and pointed out that sometimes these dog shoes are useful safety accessories. His experience (or, his dog Sam’s experience) is probably the reason this product exists. But I stand by my point about doggie sweaters!

PPC, or “Pay Per Click” advertising is huge these days, and rightly so. Everyone searches when using the internet, whether it be Google or Yahoo or Microsoft’s Live Search. This integral feature of the Internet is provided free of charge because these companies get ad revenue from the simple text-based ads that appear along the side of the “organic” results, presented under the moniker “sponsored” results.

The simplicity of the ads—a title, two lines of text, and a URL—belies the complexity of the process by which they appear. I won’t go into it here because (a) you won’t read pages of explanation about keyword analysis, bidding strategies, and grouping of ads to improve quality scores; and (b) you can read a great explanation at O’Reilly’s site if you do want to read pages about it. It suffices to know that it’s an auction: you bid to have your ad appear when someone searches for a relevant keyword. Suppose you sell dog food. Someone searches Yahoo for “dog food,” so you want your ad to appear so they can click it and, with any luck, buy 50 lbs. of your kibble.

The auction is tricky. There’s lots to it and even if you make it in the list consistently, you might get shaken out of position by a newcomer. Is there a better way? Well, some companies offer “direct-placement” ads. These are the same ads, but these companies guarantee they’ll appear in one of the top 3 positions for whichever set of keywords (or phrases) you pay for. Seems good, right? Then why doesn’t everyone do it?

I investigated one of these companies, Nett Solutions, after a cold-call from them. I was skeptical. I’d never heard of direct-placement ads and their model flew in the face of the search engine’s auction model. But, I was curious. I spoke with a PPC campaign manager who told me even it were possible, the keyphrases they’d be able to offer would be so obscure as to be worthless (imagine buying “purple dog house”—no one’s searching for that so it’s worthless if you sell dog houses). I read dozens of forum posts on search engine sites about people who’d been burned by scam companies selling this service. Most of those discussed customers’ sites’ rankings being hurt—or removed altogether—because the scam companies achieved their goals temporarily by gaming the search engines’s systems. I even spoke to my Google AdWords representative, who told me flat-out “Google does not participate in direct-placement ads.” Fair enough, I thought. It can’t be done (at least legitimately). I included this info in my recommendation of PPC-management vendors. But my manager was curious (he knew a thing or two about Internet marketing) and wanted to call their bluff. “Uhhh, okay” I said and began working with Nett Solutions.

This post is getting long, so I’ll summarize in three points:

1. It worked - We chose seven keyphrases—relevant ones, too. We were given a price for each (on the order of a few hundred dollars a month) and paid a very modest start-up fee of $100. Within a few days the ads were up. We checked night and day, from various computers—even had out-of-state friends look. The ads were always there and I never saw it outside of the first position (above the organic listings) after a few days. I was impressed.
2. It didn’t work - Despite this, our click-throughs (CTs) were abysmal. After a few weeks I asked for a report of impressions so we could see whether the (a) ads weren’t being seen that often so our CTs were low, or (b) our ads were being seen but they weren’t compelling (I gotta say, they were). Nett Solutions couldn’t provide one. “Wait until three months,” they said. That’s ridiculous. I pressed on and finally got one after two months. Kind of. It only provided CTs, not impressions. The CTs were about 10x higher than our web metrics reported (I’d set up special URLs for the ads to better track the results). When I asked about the discrepancy and why no impressions were included, I was instead given a sales pitch to help create better landing pages for the campaigns.
3. Salesy - They were very much focused on sales. The first guy I spoke to was a salesman. He talked a lot about the reporting we’d get when I asked about it, but once the deal was sealed I never spoke to him again. I worked with an account manager who, as mentioned, tried to sell me on landing page assistance rather than answer my questions. Yet another person–the most honest of the group—actually created the ads. Or, I should say fixed the ads because the first batch went live without me writing, approving, or even seeing them.

To be fair, they did everything they said they would. No impressions were guaranteed or even suggested, and they did say that campaign reports wouldn’t be available for three months (but the sales guy did say he could get them for me when I asked). And they respected my cancellation request without any trouble.

So, if I’m ever asked about direct-placement ads I’ll answer: yep, they “work,” but I wouldn’t go that route. Money is much better spent on hiring a reputable PPC management company. It’s transparent (both you and the company can access the advertising interface) and there’s no games.

First off: OWA is Outlook Web Access, the web-based version of Microsoft’s e-mail, calendar, and contact manager. Typically you use it when you’re away from your work computer but need to check your work e-mail (to learn the latest office gossip or which benefit the company is cutting next; that sort of thing). Today, I’m using as I work from home.

Now, OWA is pretty cool, especially the latest version. (In fact, XmlHttpRequest, the technology behind most cool web applications like Gmail, was first developed by the OWA people.) However, the dirty little secret behind OWA is its mouth-breathing cousin, OWA Light. A great comparison of the two can be found here.

Having developed web apps before, I know about cross-browser difficulties, and having worked for a corporation I know about fiscally-driven business decisions. So I understand the OWA team at MS probably sat down and said “let’s give those losers on the Mac and Firefox-using counter-culturists something so the Justice department keeps off our backs.” Just kidding. Seriously, giving up some advanced features like adding/editing mail rules, viewing messages in conversation mode, and recovering deleted items seems justified. Other features are on the fence and probably only matter if you need them: accessing the Tasks module (I don’t even know what that is, so I don’t care) and viewing your calendar in anything but day view.

Some features are absolute essential and why they’re missing I can’t understand. My two biggies: message flags and search.

• Message flags - I organize my inbox and track what I need to do (in part) with flagged messages. Someone requests a change on the site but I’m too busy right this second to do it–boom, red flag. An e-mail with a website I need gets flagged green for reference. Sometimes I use purple or orange flags for a bunch of messages that come in for a specific project. Quite useful, but it’s missing. Why? Simple thing to do. Even if MS left out sorting or searching by flag, they could’ve implemented a simple drop-down menu with colors in it to represent the flags. There’s no cross-browser concern there.
• Search - I am a Gmail user (okay, fanatic might be a better term). It’s simplicity and power in search is amazing. OWA Light has no search… unless you want to search your contacts or address book. This is a non-trivial feature, I know. But honestly, something as integral as searching e-mail! Why wouldn’t they have included this at the expense of other features or simply said “even non-IE users need search!”

Okay, I feel better for having said my piece. I’m probably stuck with OWA Light until I get my nice new Macbook Pro where I can run Windows (at a decent speed) and use the desktop Outlook client.

My Saturday evening was spent sweltering in the 88-degree heat of the NW Martial Arts dojo. What possessed me to do such a thing? The jō. Not this Joe, or this Joe, or even this Jo(lene): this jō. The dojo held a seminar on it.

The jō, or short staff, is a great weapon. It’s certainly not the deadliest (that honor probably goes to the sword) or the most menacing (I’d nominate the kusarigama for that). In fact, it’s because of its simplicity that gives it its utility. When’s the last time you were walking around with a sword or pair of nunchaku? Probably not recently (if at all). But a jō is really just a walking stick… no one would question you walking around with wooden stiff about an inch in diameter coming up to your armpit.

In the seminar we learned the aikido kata (unimaginatively) called “Jō 1.” It consists of twenty-two steps and it really is simple. Like all kata, though, there is an amazing amount to learn and practice and apply from the kata. I was treated to two excellent practitioners of the weapon performing the kata and man, does it look great. The timing of the counting (in Japanese of course) sounds equally cool.

The jō is a relative of the spear, and so many of the techniques are thrusts as though it were topped with a deadly point. We worked on ways to use the jō. The simplest was as regular upper block where the jō is held outward with an “unbendable arm”—trust me, punching into that a few times will dissuade an attacker. More complicated techniques included a judo-style throw where the jō is grabbed by the attacker; you then step forwarded to break their posture, place it behind their knee, and throw to where the attacker is now weak (it’s definitely easier to understand visually instead of verbally).

I’ll try and post more about my martial arts study, as it really has been a large part of my life for nearly a year now.

If you’ve been on the Interwebs at all in the last year or so, you’ve probably come across a link to the YouTube phenom known either as the “I like turtles kid” or “Zombie-faced kid.” If you haven’t, that’s odd, but here you go: Zombie Kid Likes Turtles. It’s been viewed over 5 million times (it’s an easy watch, weighing in at only 17 seconds), and has spawned dozens of remixes and parodies. I admit, it’s funny for the pure senselessness of the response and more for the reporter’s stunned response.

Anyway, I ran across this video of the same reporter who tracked the boy down and interviewed him and his family. It’s not terribly interesting in itself, but it does show how integrated the web is into mainstream life now. Case in point: the sister first heard about her brother’s then-nascent popularity from a friend’s post on her MySpace page.